


Between the Shadow and the Soul

by withthebreezesblown



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Body Horror, F/M, It's gross, You Have Been Warned, because it's a thing that fascinates me about wardens, explores the repulsive allure of the horrifying, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 10:54:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10875297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withthebreezesblown/pseuds/withthebreezesblown
Summary: The nightmares are bad. They've always been bad, especially without her there having them too. But the Calling is something else.





	Between the Shadow and the Soul

His head _throbs_. When he bites back a curse that nearly spills out his lips at Darren– _no, he doesn’t want a Maker-fucking-forsaken nightcap_ –he doesn’t know if it’s the headache, frustration at the constant off-kilter rhythm thrumming through him, or the actual monster waiting to come climbing out of his blood and into his brain that nearly makes him snap. Darren is, after all, Alistair’s favorite–he still isn’t comfortable with the word, “servant.” On better days he calls the man an employee paid to enact the artifice that he is simply his King’s very helpful friend–and on very good days the fact that this is nearer to the truth than any genuine friendship between them only makes him feel vaguely disgusted with himself.

Today is not a good day.

Even when he finally finds himself slipping between mercifully cool sheets and attended by only his mabaris, his head continues to pound. He doesn’t think he’ll sleep at all, which is perhaps why it’s such a surprise when he comes to in total darkness. Despite the lack of light, he knows instantly where he is, never mind that he’s been surrounded by the stirrings of the Taint _everywhere he goes_ for months now. It’s different in the Deep Roads. He’d know the feel of this foul place anywhere.

In the distance he catches the faintest flickering. When he checks himself over as he stands, he’s surprised to find Duncan’s sword belted to him. He knows it by touch, knows the moment his fingers drag over the hilt that it isn’t the one that once belonged to Maric that he usually wears at Eamon’s insistence. Who in any kingdom in Thedas would bother dropping him in the Deep Roads but leave him armed? And with a sword runed to weaken darkspawn at that? Fist tight around the hilt of the sword, he creeps toward the distant light.

The closer he gets the more noises he catches. Soft thuds and fleshy squelching sounds. The tearing and grinding sounds of jaws rending something. He’s nearly to the corner the light is trickling around when he hears the sound that makes his feet and heart stop and then scramble to rush on. A moan, or maybe a whimper. Guttural and terrible and _hers_.

When he rounds the corner, his eyes are searching for her immediately. They keep searching, long after a part of him realizes exactly where she is, while another part refuses.

Because he promised her.

He promised her wouldn’t let them do this. He held her in his arms while she puked until she could only dry heave and swore he’d be there to keep this from happening.

And so he ignores for as long as he can the single strand of limp red hair trailing from an otherwise bald, scabbed head across clammy, bruised skin, under her arm and around until it’s lost in the folds that her lower body has swollen into. She’s eating what appears to be one of her own recent offspring, no less hideous than an adult hurlock, and somehow the idea that darkspawn are the only creatures who aren’t cute even as helpless babies makes him want to giggle. A strip of rotted flesh is hanging from between her teeth when her gaze falls on him and her head tilts to the side.

She finishes eating, just watching him as the terrible song crescendos in his head. Every motion becomes slow and deliberate, and… he is mesmerized by it. By the long fingers, blackened at the nailless tips, that she sucks on suggestively when she finishes.

“…Alistair. I’ve been waiting for you. You said you would come… you promised.”

Guilt collides with confusion as his head throbs in rhythm with the music so strongly that he cannot think straight. All he can say is, “I know.”

“But you’ve come to me now, haven’t you?”

He takes an involuntary step forward when her hand trails over her ribcage where one of the bones juts out at an odd angle, a sharp, broken point visible under the skin. Her skin. He’s thought about her skin a hundred thousand times since he last touched it, and this isn’t right, there’s something wrong, it isn’t supposed to be like this, but the music is singing a chorus of, “yes, yes yes,” or is that his mouth? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything anymore except how long he has wanted her, and now she is here. He can’t think what could possibly be wrong when she is right here, beckoning him forward toward her bare breasts. _Yes, yes, yes._

“It’s all we ever wanted, isn’t it? We’ll remake the _world_. You and me. We’ll remake _everything_. You and me and our beautiful babies.”

_Yes, yes, yes._

His hand brushes absently against his sword, and when it does, the world flickers. For an instant, the song quiets. And he remembers exactly what is wrong.

She wouldn’t want to live like this. She would never forgive him for letting her become this if she had her mind about her. He can’t have her. He can’t ever have her now, because _this isn’t her_ , this putrid, festering mess that even without the song that turns everything inside out and upside down he still can’t help seeing the beauty in. He can’t have her, but he can help her. His fingers wrap around the hilt of Duncan’s sword with purpose this time.

After, he collapses onto the floor, sobbing. Nothing has been right between them since that Blighted fucking Landsmeet, but this…

And the song is still there, singing to him with her voice even though she’ll never speak to him again. Why fight it now? What’s there left to fight for?

He rolls onto his back staring up into the cavern’s roof and lets his breathing synchronize. When he closes his eyes and breathes with it, it isn’t terrible any more. It’s beautiful. Beautiful like her. He feels, for the first time in so long, entirely at peace when he opens his eyes and begins to lick her blood from his fingers.

* * *

He jolts awake in his bed, fingers wrenching from his mouth, knees colliding with one of the mabaris pressed up against him as he throws himself forward to retch over the edge of the bed. All he can think, louder than the song that won’t stop, for now at least, is, _Where are you? I’m waiting for you. No matter how loud it gets. I promised and I’m waiting. Maker, please, don’t say you’ve gone without me._


End file.
